Results from ongoing clinical trial of ISF35 to be presented at ASH annual meeting

Dec 2 2009

Memgen announced today that results from its ongoing, Leukemia & Lymphoma Society co-sponsored clinical trial in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) have been selected for an oral presentation at the 51st Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) in New Orleans, Louisiana.

The trial is designed to investigate the safety and efficacy of ISF35 in combination with chemotherapy in patients with refractory and/or 17p-deleted CLL. Patients with this type of CLL currently have only limited therapeutic options.

Two patients have been treated so far in this trial, which is being conducted at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) by Januario Castro, M.D. Both patients have achieved complete responses with the first patient showing no evidence of minimal residual disease (MRD). The second patient’s MRD results were pending at the time of this news release, but will be announced as part of Dr. Castro’s presentation. Additional details on the trial are available in the presentation’s abstract, which is available on the ASH website (Abstract #376).

Dr. Castro will present these results at the Gene Therapy and Transfer session of the ASH meeting on Monday, December 7, at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans. He will also present additional data suggesting that ISF35 can sensitize chemo-resistant CLL cells to chemotherapy.

This ISF35 clinical trial continues to actively recruit fludarabine-refractory and/or 17p-deleted CLL patients from across the country.